Bulwark: Difference between revisions - Tabletop Gamer's Guild

Line 16:

Megadungeons, vast expanses of wilderness, pocket dimensions and exotic worlds will all factor in as possible sources of adventure. Magic items, both as trinkets and as powerful consumable resources, will be common, with more powerful items becoming abundant with greater exploration. As the game continues, outside groups may find their interest in the city bolstered and additional rivals may show up.

==Morality and Ethics==

The game of Dungeons and Dragons is inherently built around a number of regressive reactionary concepts, most notably the idea that there are objective good and evil, and the notion that some creatures are inherently so. I generally reject this, apart from creatures that are literally semi-sentient manifestations of concepts (demons, daemons, devils, angels, rakshasa, devas and qlippoths, for example). One of the reasons that goblins, orcs, gnolls and other sentient "monstrous" races are used as adversaries is that we, as humans, tend to view non-human things as ''other'' in a way that we find easy to handle. We don't have to focus overmuch on the ''nature'' of our battles with these creatures, because they're there for the purpose of being slain. Killing a goblin, to most players, seems to carry less moral weight even than killing a wolf or bear.

It isn't my goal to perpetuate the notion that these creatures are somehow permissible to murder, given that they are ''different'' (something explicitly suggested in early editions of the game, incidentally). Furthermore, I have always disliked the trope that "primitive" = "bad."

However, games need adversaries, and gnolls, kobolds, trolls, goblins, ogres and the like are recognizable as such. By and large, their cultures will be treated as ''evil'' in the D&D sense, and they will be adversarial. At the very least, it will have the sort of moral ambiguity one finds in a feudal world, wherein it is by might and show of arms that plunder and land are claimed from those too weak or foolish to defend it.

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 Megadungeons, vast expanses of wilderness, pocket dimensions and exotic worlds will all factor in as possible sources of adventure. Magic items, both as trinkets and as powerful consumable resources, will be common, with more powerful items becoming abundant with greater exploration. As the game continues, outside groups may find their interest in the city bolstered and additional rivals may show up.
+==Morality and Ethics==
+The game of Dungeons and Dragons is inherently built around a number of regressive reactionary concepts, most notably the idea that there are objective good and evil, and the notion that some creatures are inherently so. I generally reject this, apart from creatures that are literally semi-sentient manifestations of concepts (demons, daemons, devils, angels, rakshasa, devas and qlippoths, for example). One of the reasons that goblins, orcs, gnolls and other sentient "monstrous" races are used as adversaries is that we, as humans, tend to view non-human things as ''other'' in a way that we find easy to handle. We don't have to focus overmuch on the ''nature'' of our battles with these creatures, because they're there for the purpose of being slain. Killing a goblin, to most players, seems to carry less moral weight even than killing a wolf or bear.
+It isn't my goal to perpetuate the notion that these creatures are somehow permissible to murder, given that they are ''different'' (something explicitly suggested in early editions of the game, incidentally). Furthermore, I have always disliked the trope that "primitive" = "bad."
+However, games need adversaries, and gnolls, kobolds, trolls, goblins, ogres and the like are recognizable as such. By and large, their cultures will be treated as ''evil'' in the D&D sense, and they will be adversarial. At the very least, it will have the sort of moral ambiguity one finds in a feudal world, wherein it is by might and show of arms that plunder and land are claimed from those too weak or foolish to defend it.